


In which Shakespeare reminds us (moonlight serenades are a bad idea)

by meet_the_girl_who_can



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Mild Language, References to Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24154672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meet_the_girl_who_can/pseuds/meet_the_girl_who_can
Summary: Caroline gets paired with a certain attractive english thorn in side when she's cast as Juliet Capulet in the production of Romeo and Juliet, except when her leading man decides to seize the day and rehearse in situ as it were, Caroline gets more than she bargained for
Relationships: Caroline Forbes & Lorenzo "Enzo" St. John, Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson, Gia/Lorenzo "Enzo" St. John
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	In which Shakespeare reminds us (moonlight serenades are a bad idea)

“Alaric said we had to practise remember sweetheart?”

It shouldn’t irritate her that endearment, it’s simply his manner of speaking, but it does. He uses terms of familiarity; love, sweetheart, mate, with everyone and she hates it. The again, it seems Klaus lives to irritate her. Case in point, how hot he looks while he’s doing it. The others had teased her about this particular bug-bear and Caroline had pointed out that she didn’t mind at all when Enzo referred to her as ‘Gorgeous’. That was until Enzo said that was probably because he _only_ used it on her and using that particular endearment wasn’t done to bother _her._ She hadn’t understood what he’d meant by that, simply slipped off his knee and headed over the bar to get the next round in, hoping Klaus would have stopped scowling at her from across the room by the time she returned.

Anyway, that’s not the issue here. The fact is Klaus Mikaelson is shouting lines of Shakespeare from memory up at her dormitory balcony and completely ruining Caroline’s study schedule.

“NOT AT 10PM YOU FREAK” she whisper-shouts back, completely mortified by the situation. She has to get rid of him. Immediately. But he’s just been doing the bit about her casting off her ‘vestal livery’ and she doesn’t care how romantic in sounds in Old English like fuck is she having sex with Klaus. It’s not that she’s worried about what the RA will do or anything – the RA of the dorm she, Bonnie, Elena and her cousin Katherine Pierce share is in fact one Freya Mikaelson, Klaus’ older sister. She’s fun to hang out with and plays the part of older sister well to everyone under her jurisdiction but Caroline’s not sure how to feel about her. For a start, Freya already knew Caroline by name when they met – meaning Klaus had already talked about her to his siblings. Secondly, while she’ll commiserate cheerfully with Kat when she complains about Elijah or Bonnie’s rants about Kol’s mischief making in Professor Shane’s Witchcraft course, the same is not true of Caroline. Whenever Caroline starts about Klaus being infuriating, Freya’s eyes go all soft and her words are more placating and non-judgemental about that particular brother. So Caroline saves her complaining for Enzo and Bekah instead.

“Well I was on my way to Stefan’s anyway for a beer and there you were, already in position for the scene! As the man himself once said, opportunity knocks but once!”

Outstanding. He’s drunk. Probably on his way over to the Salvatores with a keg in the back of his top of the range SUV to reminisce about Chicago or something. How Stefan can be friends with her, love Elena and yet still be friends with Klaus is a mystery to her. Much the same as the fact that Enzo can be friends with her and Damon, the older Salvatore, who is also in love with Elena.

Thinking of Enzo, she could call him to come and pick up Klaus and hold this against Klaus for the rest of the semester.

“I’ll knock you in a minute if you don’t shut up” Caroline clucks her tongue and straightens, so that she can get a proper look at Klaus. He looks…fuck him, he looks hot, moonlight cutting across his cheekbones, shadows clinging to his trademark Henley. Doesn’t he own another type of shirt?! One that’s not so clingy to the broad muscles of his chest?!

“Are you drunk?” she snaps, irritated by the betrayal of her body, even from this distance.

“No!” Klaus looks incredibly offended by the suggestion. “Just going to watch the football with the boys, I promise love” Like a reassuring boyfriend. It’s at this point, the SUV’s passenger window rolls down to reveal none other than Enzo himself, who sticks his attractive dark head out of the window and shouts just as baldly up at her “Honestly Gorgeous, do you really think I’d let this moron _drive_ all the way over here let alone rehearse with you if he was half cut? You wound me.”

“ _Enzo_?!” Caroline shrieks scandalised, hoping that it serves as both a reprimand and demand for explanation. But Enzo, that little shit, merely winks at her and rolls his window back up.

Starting tomorrow she needs a new best friend. After she castrates Enzo and sends Gia a fruit basket by way of apology.

“Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, that tips with silver all this fruit-tree tops”

“Please don’t” Caroline asked into her hands. Unable to resist, her fingers, traitorous bastards, slipped open, allowing a chequered glance at the scene below her. Klaus had actually got down on one knee, one hand on his heart, the other extended out towards her balcony as he delivered his lines. Romeo was back.

“What shall I swear by?” Klaus calls up to her playfully and from the glare Caroline’s presently giving him, he’s absurdly pleased to realise that Caroline must already know this scene as well as he does, even if she’s not truly accurate in her quoting. Given their sniping at each other at every opportunity, he’d been surprised when Alaric had cast them to play the titular lovers. Their flirting – because that’s what it has grown into to the surprise of everyone - is of a far more Beatrice and Benedick in slant. She’s actually in his phone as My Dear Lady Disdain because any other girl who spoke to him the way Caroline did came off as rude and irritating. Yet Caroline manages to be thoroughly enchanting even when furious and using language that would make a sailor blush. Perhaps it’s her authenticity, her sincerity to her emotions and the position and weight she places on the happiness and feelings of everyone around her. Which unfortunately is above her own. Or perhaps it’s because Caroline, like Juliet, is the sun. She gives warmth, gives and gives and gives to everyone she meets. He shudders to think what nominative he’s under in Caroline’s phone. Ass probably.

Caroline doesn’t actually understand Klaus. By rights, she’d normally be all over a guy like him with the accent and the body (his shirt has ridden up in class more than once) and the fact that he can quote Shakespeare as well as a great deal of others from memory. He’s exactly the kind of guy she’d pictured meeting when she came to college. Unfortunately his personality completely spoils the attraction she’d felt at his intellect and appearance. In short, the guy was a jackass. He seemed to delight in winding her up personally. With other people in Alaric’s Literature and History course he shoots them down immediately but with Caroline he takes a great deal in pleasure in ripping her arguments and points to shreds.

Self-righteous bastard.

For example, just the other day when the casting for _Romeo and Juliet_ had been announced and Caroline had asked Alaric if he was intentionally trying to sabotage her grade by putting her opposite that philistine Klaus had asked how working with him was the same as having a wooden clog lobbed in French factory machinery.

Etymologically informed asshole.

Even if their exchanges had been more kindly of late, flirtatious even, she just wishes he take her seriously! She thinks, in a very sad way, they could have actually been friends if he’d get over himself and be more respectful to others. She knows from her little spy in the enemy camp (aka Enzo) that Klaus has her in his phone under the moniker of ‘My Dear Lady Disdain’. He’d quoted it at her after she’d rather artfully discredited his opinion of Anne Boleyn when they were discussing _Henry VIII_ and they’d ended up shooting Benedick and Beatrice’s lines at each other until Alaric had called the classes attention away from the impromptu performance. After that it was his own personal nickname for her. Originally Caroline had thought to put Klaus’ number under Bottom from _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ what with him being such an ass. However, he’s actually under the name Midas because he may be an ass, but he’s a rich ass. Seriously the Mikaelsons are loaded.

Anyway. It dawns on her that Romeo down there is answering her purely in quotes – regardless of whether Caroline was using Juliet’s lines or not. Ergo….’If I do this in character will you go the fuck away?”

Klaus’ grin widens. That’s a yes then. _Christ._

“Do not swear at all” she quotes back, trying to get into the mind set of a 16th century Italian teenager, making her protestation as desperately yearning as she could. He wanted to practise, she’d give him the practise of his life. And actually if they got the lines down tonight she’d be able to rearrange things so that maybe she and the girls could go for a manicure tomorrow afternoon. 

“If my heart’s dear love-“

Caroline turns back, grinning triumphantly and leans over the rail, her voice as loud as his as she shouts “I HAVE NO JOY OF THIS CONTRACT TONIGHT! IT IS TOO RASH, TOO UNADVISED, TOO SUDDEN SO KINDLY FUCK OFF KLAUS’

“O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” Though he’s pretty sure he knows what Caroline would have told Romeo if her non-Juliet like answers so far are anything to go by.

Caroline grins evilly, lips curling at the corners and even from this distance he can see her smirking. That’s probably the last thing Mr. Cuddles saw before she and Elena buried him. Although Caroline doesn’t know he knows that. But she’s a loud drunk and he was in the booth across the room when she confided that to Enzo.

“What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” she spits. For all her love of the language, the passion of the lovers, Caroline doesn’t actually like Juliet that much. The whole play takes place over three days. It’s speed dating on crack in her opinion and she can’t help the sarcasm dripping from Juliet’s words as she speaks them. The perfectionist in her (who her friends would say was the one on crack) is desperate to redo the lines properly but they’ve got plenty of time to work on that. It’s only a read-through after all.

“The exchange of love’s faithful vow for mine” Klaus draws nearer to the balcony at the words, smiling hopefully up at her. The way he’s speaking…Caroline never realised he was actually a good actor, he’s delivering the words in a truly impassioned way; like he’s really asking for her – for Juliet rather – to voice a declaration of love in return for the one his words imply.

“I gave thee mine before thou didst request it,” that’s true enough, she’d liked him long before they’d actually interacted in any student bar or even class debate. She liked the way he phrased his arguments, she’d initially enjoyed his take on things, the gentlemanly way he’d acted around people, the way he was totally engrossed in his books or his notepads in the coffee-shop they both frequented next to the Library. The words come out not as the joyful declaration she’d been shooting for but an accusation. Klaus’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise so trying to rescue the line, Caroline continues wistfully “And yet I would it were to give again”

Klaus, down on the grass below is genuinely curious when he delivers Romeo’s next line as to why Caroline’s looking genuinely upset. The shock of seeing him at her dorm is gone and now she looks not harassed but…bitter. He’d meant this to be fun, not upsetting “Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose love?”

The endearment on the end of the line gives Caroline a nasty shock. She knew it was part of the dialogue, that Klaus isn’t speaking his own mind here but she can’t help but feel that it’s as if he’s genuinely asking why. _Because you’re a selfish jerk!_ She wants to shout at him. _Because I like you against my better judgement! Because you make me feel something, you **evoke** something and I wish it was real rather than just **goading** me!_

“But to be frank! And give it to thee again!”

They’ve been doing this relatively chronologically and so Juliet’s first exit is coming up. As entertaining as this is, Caroline may soon get her chance to draw the conversation to a close naturally. At least he’s made an impression and quite literally done his homework. He wonders if they’ll get extra credit for doing it on location.

They rattle through the rest of the dialogue quite quickly and when Juliet’s exits crop up Caroline keeps glancing back at the doors where Katherine is standing, arms crossed, mildly threatening blocking the way back into the dorm. Caroline never thought Katherine would be the one to be the Mom friend, forcing her to do her homework. Even though that means spending time with one of the most flirtatious, attractive assholes on the planet. Elijah must be rubbing off on her.

Every time Caroline tries to back herself into the apartment, Katherine gets round her smilingly saying the Nurse’s lines until the dialogue is complete. God help her she even looks towards Klaus with a sort of ‘save me’ expression, though he just smiles softly and shrugs. Of course he’s not going to come to her rescue when it works to his advantage. Eventually though they wrap up the scene and Caroline pushes past Kat into the sanctity of the apartment.

****

Katherine, evidently feeling bad for Klaus (and isn’t that a fucking surprise) shrugs sympathetically down at him, waves at Enzo and slides the balcony door shut.

That didn’t go exactly to plan he’ll admit, but at least they got the scene done. Klaus gets slowly off the grass and thanks whoever is smiling down on him that the security guards didn’t come by and have his guts for garters. As he brushes the grass off his jeans, Klaus keeps hopefully sneaking a glance up at the girls room. It was Juliet’s line ‘But if thou meanst not well I beseech you” that keeps coming back to him. Caroline had thrown it at him so angrily, it was difficult not to understand that she truly meant it. He’d never meant for her to get under his skin in such a way but now…now he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Klaus had been in so few long term relationships, he’d been thinking before university started that perhaps it simply wasn’t meant for him. Particularly given his parents track record. Yet Caroline with blonde hair and her strong opinions, those lethal sundresses and the way her nose wrinkled when she laughed had changed all of that.

He wanted her. And rather than simply spreading her out in his King sized bed and discovering each and every way to make her scream (have no doubt he was certainly still intending to do that) but in addition it was _his_ hand that Caroline ought to be holding rather than Enzo’s every now and then, _his_ car she should be getting out of every morning and _his_ fucking lap she should be sitting on in the pub. Not her best friend. If it were anyone else, Stefan or Matt, he’d make mincemeat out of the pathetic scrappers, if they weren’t chasing after ‘Perfect’ Elena Gilbert. Good luck to them.

But Enzo and Marcel are his friends too, hence they get away with a glower due to their charismatic friendship with a particular blonde. Besides Marcel’s dating Rebekah and if he started going after Caroline he’d have bigger problems than Klaus to worry about. Rebekah would use his balls as Christmas decorations. But that’s getting off topic, stage one of wooing Caroline Forbes was complete. Now it was time for Stage Two.

**Author's Note:**

> Should this be continued? Or are we good as we are? xx


End file.
